How to clean your contact lens case

5 tips to follow before cleaning your contact lens case 

1. Wash your hands. First of all, whenever you are going to do anything to do with contact lenses, wash your hands. We advise you to use a neutral soap, without fragrance or additives, as contact lenses don’t mesh well. If for whatever reason you are not at home and you cannot wash your hands with soap and water, you can use soap sheets or wipes, as long as they are as neutral as possible.
2. Do not use water under any circumstances. As you may already know, water and contact lenses are not good friends, so it is not a good idea to clean the place where you store your contact lenses with tap water. Nor is it the right decision to use hot or boiling water in the disinfection process. In short, water, in either case, is not a good choice.
3. Soap. Some people recommend using soap or even a toothbrush to clean your case. We advise against this method. Again, soap may contain ingredients that are contraindicated for contact lenses and a toothbrush can collect bacteria.
4. Clean your case right after putting in your contact lenses. Sometimes logic is the most obvious answer to some questions, but we understand that if you're a first-timer you may have a thousand questions in your head. If you're wondering when to wash your case, the answer, as with everything else, is: after use, i.e. after putting in your contact lenses.
5. Rinse your lenses. As mentioned above, you will clean the case after putting in your lenses, so remember, when you open the case to put them in and then clean it, also rinse the lenses with a multipurpose solution or saline solution to make sure they are completely clean before you put them in.

What to do with your unused contact lens case

After all these tips, you may have started to calculate how much waste you’ll accumulate. You may be asking yourself: If, in theory, I have to exchange my contact lenses every 2 months, and there are 12 months, that adds up to 6 contact lenses a year, what do I do with those 6 contact lenses that I have to get rid of? Vision Direct has 2 options for you:

• Give your contact lens case a new use: Find a second life for your contact lens case, it might be the perfect place to store small items such as jewellery. It can also be transformed into a pill box or be the perfect travel companion for storing smaller items such as earrings in your suitcase. Alternatively, if you’re about to dispose of your lenses and there isn’t a bin nearby, your old lens case can be a good container until you can dispose of your used lenses properly.
• Recycle your contact lens case properly: If you are not a hoarder and you don't like handicrafts, please recycle your contact lens cases properly. In general, contact lens cases are 100% plastic, so please dispose of them at your nearest plastic recycling point. You can also recycle your lenses with us. Just pop your used lenses, blister packs and packaging back in the box you received your lenses in and print off one of our prepaid labels and send them back to us. Easy peasy.

Related links

• How to remove contact lenses
• Choosing your contact lenses: different types of lenses
• Travelling with contact lenses